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Many of the HERO STORIES, history,
citations and other information detailed in this website are, at least for now, available
in PRINT or DIGITAL format from AMAZON.COM. The below comprise the nearly 4-dozen books
currently available.

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Medal
of Honor Books

This series of books contains the citations for ALL
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These books contain the citations for nearly all of the awards of the Silve
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ENCYCLOPEDIA
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With the 5 Medal of Honor volumes
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"Blood that has soaked into the
sands of a beach is all one color. America stands unique in the world, the only
country not founded on race, but on a way--an ideal."(General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell upon presenting a posthumous
award of the Distinguished Service Cross to Mary Masuda, sister of Staff Sergeant Kazuo
Masuda.)

"Retiring The Colors"

The Long Road Home

The last, victorious campaign of the
100th/442nd was a beautiful example of the teamwork and espirit de corps that existed in
the Nisei unit. Unfortunately, not all members of the team were present to
participate. In Germany the Teams 522d Field Artillery Battalion was still "on
loan" to other units. The closing days of the war would provide the unit one of
their most haunting engagements of the war.

Many of the young soldiers of the 522d Field
Artillery Battalion had come to the 442nd after enlisting at relocation camps in the
Western United States. Many Japanese-Americans who then populated the camps, as
indeed do many even today, disliked the term "Relocation Camp". The
hastily constructed facilities were laid out in a militaristic fashion with spartan
surroundings. Around the camp was barbed wire and gun towers. While the
government exercised great caution in censorship of the photographs taken of the camps,
occasionally an embarrassing photo surfaced. Every effort had been expended to
screen out photos that showed the Japanese interred there in the presence of army guards.
But the fact remained, and a few uncensored photos proved, that these American
citizens were indeed under armed guard. For all practical intents and purposes,
these relocation camps were actually America's version of Concentration Camps.

As the Allied advance moved swiftly into the
heart of Germany, the soldiers of the 522d once again saw similar facilities, spartan
camps laid out in military fashion and surrounded by barbed wire and gun towers.
The Nisei were among the first to enter the gates of the Dachau concentration
camp where some of the most grotesque and inhumane medical experiments of the war were
performed on living human beings...most of them Jewish. The liberation of Dachau
provided a picture most of the Nisei would never forget, one that haunted them in their
dreams. Under orders not to share supplies as the war was still in progress, the
Nisei could not ignore the pleas of the human skeletons that paraded thankfully before
them. As the Nisei handed out food from their own packs, sympathetic officers looked
the other way. Sometimes, the heart demanded that one ignore orders and do what is
right. Sadly, too many German soldiers had never learned this lesson, and the
horrors of Dachau provided ample proof to attest to this fact.

For the 522d's Central Europe Campaign from March
22 to May 11, 1945, the 552d Field Artillery Battalion added yet another Presidential Unit
Citation to the incredible record of the 442d Regimental Combat Team. Shortly after
the liberation of Dachau, the unit returned to Italy to join the rest of their team.

Over the next fourteen months the 442nd remained in
Italy to direct much of the post-war effort. Many of their duties after the May 9,
1945 German surrender was the guarding of prisoners of war. Immediately after the
war ended, nearly 200 combat veterans of the 100th/442d (including 4 officers),
volunteered for the MIS (now called MISLS - Military Intelligence Service Language School)
in order to serve in the Pacific. Before the summer came to an end however, the
Japanese surrendered. With the historic signing aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo
Harbor on September 2, 1945, all World War II hostilities had terminated.

Without battles to wage, the focus of the Nisei
unit changed. During the training phases for both the 100th Infantry Battalion and
the 442d RCT in the days before combat, the Nisei units had stood out for their military
professionalism, pride, and military bearing. Now, in the months before the expected
return home, the unit turned once again to close-order drills, spit-shines, starch, and
inspections. In the early months of 1946, the emphasis increased to an even greater
pitch. Not only was the 442d Regimental Combat Team going home, they were to be the
ONLY returning military unit to date to be received by the President of the United States.

On July 16, 1946 the proud Nisei of the 100th
Infantry Battalion/442d Regimental combat team marched proudly down Constitution Avenue in
Washington, DC. It was a festive day, more than 10,000 citizens braving the rain to
watch the return of the most decorated unit of World War II, perhaps the most decorated in
American military history.

Dignitaries and military officials abounded.
The War Department and other Federal agencies gave employees special time off to witness
the return of the Nisei. The proud "Go For Broke" regiment marched up
Constitution to the White House lawn where they met their Commander in Chief. As the
proud young soldiers stood rigidly at attention, the President removed his hat and placed
it over his heart as he passed in review. Then he presented the unit with its
SEVENTH Presidential Unit Citation. As he looked out over the proud, young faces of
the Japanese-American soldiers, he spoke proudly of their service.

"You fought for the free nations of the world.

"You fought not only the enemy, you
fought prejudice--and you won.

"Keep up that fight...continue to
win--make this great Republic stand for what the Constitution says it stands for: 'the
welfare of all the people, all the time.'"

President Harry S TrumanJuly 15, 1945

Following the heraldic reception in
our Nation's Capitol, veterans of the 100th/442d began returning home. In August the
442d Regimental Combat Team was demobilized and inactivated. The lineage and honors
have been preserved by the 100th Battalion, 442d Infantry (U.S. Army Reserve).

"If we the living, the beneficiaries
of their sacrifices are truly intent upon showing our gratitude, we must do more than
gather together for speechmaking and perfunctory ceremonies. We must undertake to
carry on the unfinished work which they so nobly advanced. The fight against
prejudice is not confined to the battlefield alone. It is here and with us now.
So long as a single member of our citizenry is denied the use of public facilities
and denied the right to earn a decent living because, and solely because of the color of
his skin, we who 'fought against prejudice and won' ought not sit idly by and tolerate the
perpetuation of injustices."

POSTSCRIPT:Even as World War II was drawing to a close, a group of freshly trained young
Nisei was enroute as replacements for the 100th/442nd. The troop transport carrying
the eager young soldiers to Italy was five days from shore when word arrived that the war
was over. Among the new arrivals was a young Nisei from Gallup, New
Mexico....Private Hiroshi H. Miyamura.

Young "Hershey", as we was called, served
with the 100th/442nd during their post-war year in Italy, then returned to the United
States with his victorious unit, never having seen combat. But the torch of liberty,
together with a proud heritage, had been passed to a new generation of Japanese-Americans.
Seven years later Hershey returned to battle on foreign shores, this time in Korea.
There he fought with the same courage and determination that marked his brothers of
World War II. In Korea, Hiroshi H. Miyamura became the second Japanese-American to
receive the Medal of Honor, and until the DSCs of the World War II Nisei were upgraded on
June 21, 2000, he was the only living Japanese-American Medal of Honor recipient.

Click on
the button at left to reach our 10-page historical series about the attack on Pearl
Harbor, and the 15 men who earned Medals of Honor that day.

The pages from this web
story are NOW AVAILABLE as an attractive, illustrated book from
American Legacy Media.
CLICK ON COVER TO ORDER
Includes these pages, MOH Citations, ALL 100/442 DSC Citations &
Roster of KIAs